The Latest: Trump administration ties El Paso airspace closure to Mexican cartel drones

The Federal Aviation Administration reopened the airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas on Wednesday morning, just hours after it announced a 10-day closure that would have grounded all flights to and from the airport.

The FAA announced in a social media post that it has lifted the temporary closure of the airspace over El Paso, saying there was no threat to commercial aviation and all flights would resume.

The shutdown was expected to create significant disruptions given the duration and the size of the metropolitan area. El Paso, a border city with a population of nearly 700,000 and larger when the surrounding metro area is included, is a hub of cross-border commerce alongside the neighboring city of Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.

Here's the latest:

Ranking Democrat on Senate Armed Services criticizes ‘conflicting accounts’ for airport closure

The ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services committee is demanding answers for the El Paso airport’s abrupt and temporary closure, while criticizing inconsistent statements from within the Trump administration on what went wrong.

“The conflicting accounts coming from different parts of the federal government only deepen public concern and raise serious questions about coordination and decision-making,” said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

Reed called on the Defense Department and Federal Aviation Administration to “immediately present the facts, reconcile these discrepancies, and assure the American people that airspace security decisions are being made responsibly, transparently, and with public safety as the highest priority.”

Security adviser calls airspace closure ‘extremely, extremely rare’

Rich Davis, a senior security adviser at risk mitigation company International SOS and former chief security officer at United Airlines, said a prolonged airspace closure is highly unusual.

“It’s extremely, extremely rare for an airport to shut down for any length of time due to a security issue,” he said. Davis added that the initial 10-day timeline was especially striking because even a closure lasting several days is uncommon.

Last year’s midair collision in metro D.C. highlighted lack of coordination between FAA, Pentagon

The investigation into last year’s midair collision between an airliner and and Army helicopter that killed 67 highlighted the lack of coordination between the FAA and Pentagon.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the FAA and the Army didn’t share safety data about the alarming number of close calls around Reagan National Airport with each other and failed to address the risks.

El Paso airport calls itself ‘gateway to West Texas, Southern New Mexico and Northern Mexico’

El Paso International Airport calls itself the “gateway to West Texas, Southern New Mexico and Northern Mexico.”

Forty-three flights, totaling more than 5,900 seats, were scheduled to depart from the airport Wednesday, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. Seven departing flights had been canceled as of midday Wednesday, per flight tracker FlightAware — as well as another 7 flights scheduled to arrive at the airport. About a dozen more were delayed.

The majority of domestic passengers traveling through El Paso International flying are with Southwest, which the airport said accounts for more than 53% of its market share in November, the latest month with data available. Other carriers operating out of the airport include American, United, Frontier and Delta.

Cirium found that a total of 325,000 passengers flew into and out of El Paso International in November. And at this time last year, the firm said there were 229,244 total departing and arriving passengers in February 2025.

Duckworth blames air space closure on ‘lack of coordination’ by Trump administration

U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who is a former Army helicopter pilot serving on committees focused on aviation and the Armed Services, said this is yet another example of “the lack of coordination that’s endemic in this Trump administration.”

Duckworth said she is “hearing now is that it was a CBP and DoD laser based counter drone test that was not coordinated prior to them conducting the test with the FAA. So I have all sorts of questions.”

“They should have coordinated all of that before they endangered the flying public,” said Duckworth, the Illinois Democrat.

Pentagon-FAA dispute over lasers to thwart cartel drones led to airspace closure, AP sources say

The sudden and surprising airspace closure over El Paso stemmed from the Pentagon’s plans to test a laser for use in shooting down drones used by Mexican drug cartels, according to three people familiar with the situation who were granted anonymity to share sensitive details.

That caused friction with the FAA, which wanted to ensure commercial air safety and the two agencies sought to coordinate, according to two of the people.

Still, despite a meeting scheduled later this month to discuss the issue, the Pentagon wanted to go ahead and test it — prompting the FAA to shutter the airspace. It was not clear if the laser was ultimately deployed.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said earlier that a response to an incursion by Mexican cartel drones had prompted the airspace closure and that the threat had been neutralized. Drone incursions are not uncommon along the southern border.

— Seung Min Kim, Ben Finley, Mary Clare Jalonick

Airspace closure throws travel plans into chaos on both sides of border

María Aracelia was pushing two roller suitcases across the pedestrian bridge to El Paso Wednesday morning from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. She had a round-trip flight to Illinois scheduled for the afternoon.

“The (U.S.) government’s closure is affecting a lot of people indirectly who have to leave for business or other reasons,” she said.

She called the airline after receiving a text message saying there was something up with her flight around 4 a.m. local time. The airline told her the airspace would be closed for 10 days.

“So I had to look for alternatives for buses to go because I had to look (for flights) from another airport,” she said. “This is stressful and there isn’t time to make so many changes, especially if you need to get back for work.”

She had just heard the restrictions were lifted, so was headed to the El Paso airport.

Rep. Gonzales says a similar shutdown happened last year

U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican whose district stretches along more than 800 miles (1,287 kilometers) of the Texas border, including parts of El Paso, said a similar shutdown happened in November in Hudspeth County, which is about 80 miles (129 kilometers) away.

He called drone activity by drug cartels a daily experience along the border.

“For any of us who show live and work along the border, daily drone incursions by criminal organizations is everyday life for us. It’s a Wednesday for us,” Gonzales said.

‘Keeping our communities informed and safe is critical’

U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, a Democrat, said in a statement that he was demanding answers from the FAA and the Trump administration “about why the airspace was closed in the first place without notifying appropriate officials, leaving travelers to deal with unnecessary chaos.”

He added that “keeping our communities informed and safe is critical.”

Airspace closure redirected medical evacuations to New Mexico

“Medical evacuation flights were forced to divert to Las Cruces,” El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson said at a Wednesday morning news conference. “All aviation operations were grounded, including emergency flights. This was a major and unnecessary disruption, one that has not occurred since 9/11.”

Las Cruces is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) from El Paso.

Johnson added that a significant amount of necessary surgical equipment en route from Dallas and other parts of the country “did not show up here in El Paso.”

Congresswoman says information from federal government ‘does not add up’

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes El Paso, had urged the FAA to lift the restrictions in a statement Wednesday morning, saying neither her office, the city of El Paso nor airport operations received advance notice.

“I believe the FAA owes the community and the country an explanation as to why this happened so suddenly and abruptly and was lifted so suddenly and abruptly,” she said during a morning news conference, adding that there was “nothing extraordinary about any drone incursion into the U.S. that I’m aware of.”

Later, she said, “The information coming from the federal government does not add up.”

Sheinbaum reports ‘no information’ on drone use along the border today

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said in her morning press briefing that her government was going to look into “the exact causes of why they closed” the flights.

Asked about the explanation given by U.S. officials, she said, “There is no information about the use of drones on the border.” She noted that if U.S. authorities have more information, they should contact Mexico’s government.

“There’s no need for speculation, we’re going to have information, and as always, continue our permanent communication” with the U.S., she said.

Mexico and US security officials slated to meet in Washington

Mexican defense and navy secretaries will meet with Northern Command officials in Washington on Wednesday in a meeting attended by several other countries, according to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Sheinbaum said during her morning news conference that Mexican officials would “listen” in the meeting.

“They are not taking any position other than the one we already know, which is the defense of sovereignty,” she said. “We will inform you in due course.”

She noted that Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch, who has spearheaded her government’s strategy to combat cartels, will also meet with American security officials tomorrow.

The meetings are part of ongoing security talks between the two governments.

DHS official testified before Congress last year about cartel usage of drones

Steven Willoughby, the deputy director of the counter-drone program at the Department of Homeland Security, told lawmakers in July that nearly every day cartels are using drones to try to bring drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border and surveil Border Patrol agents.

More than 27,000 drones were detected within 500 meters (1,640 feet) of the southern border in the last six months of 2024, he testified, most flying late at night.

Homeland Security has said agents have seized thousands of pounds of methamphetamine, fentanyl and other drugs that cartels have tried to bring across the border by drone over the past few years.

How Mexican cartels use drones

Mexican cartels have long used drones to traffic drugs, control migrant crossings along the border and wage war with rival cartels and authorities.

Mexico first issued an international alert about the use of remote-controlled aircraft in 2010, and the practice has only continued to expand. Often rigged commercial drones, the aircraft offer cartels an advantage to subtly carry out their illegal activities without risking their own necks like they would in the past.

Between 2012 and 2014, U.S. authorities detected 150 remote-controlled aircraft crossing the border with Mexico. A decade later, in 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection detected 10,000 drone incursions in the Rio Grande Valley area alone, according to a 2025 report.

This report also indicated that more recently, Mexican cartels seem to be inclined to smuggle fentanyl in drones, which can carry up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of cargo.

Southwest Airlines is resuming operations at El Paso International Airport

“Our travel advisory for customers remains active and we encourage customers to confirm their flight’s status on Southwest.com or the Southwest app. Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of its customers and employees,” the airline said in an updated statement.

‘There is no danger to commercial travel in the region’

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on the social platform X that the FAA and Defense Department “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”

He said normal flights are resuming.

Concern and calls for autonomy in neighboring Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Thor Salayandia, head of Mexico’s Border Business Association, explained that many Mexican maquilas — factories that produce goods for mostly U.S. consumers — said their businesses depend on the El Paso airport to ship their products.

Salayandia, the head of his family’s auto-parts manufacturing business, added that Mexican authorities should consider bolstering their airport in Juárez so as not be as dependent on the whims of their northern neighbor, coming on top of calls for more economic autonomy in the wake of Trump’s tariff threats.

“Nothing like this has ever happened in the region,” he said. “There’s a lot of confusion.”

An administration official says airspace closure was tied to cartel drones

A Trump administration official said the airspace over El Paso was closed after Mexican cartel drones breached the airspace, but said that the Defense Department took action to disable the drones.

Both the FAA and Defense Department have determined there is no threat to commercial travel, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a national security issue.

The official did not say how many drones were involved or what specifically was done to disable them.